


Tourist Attractions

by flurblewig



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Humor, Magic, Post-Chosen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-31
Updated: 2010-01-31
Packaged: 2017-10-06 21:19:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/57852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flurblewig/pseuds/flurblewig
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Welcome to Disneydale...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tourist Attractions

She left her car in a huge lot that wouldn't have been too far out of place in a theme park, and started walking up towards the rim. She wasn't the only one, either - it seemed like people were tumbling out of SUVs wherever she looked. Some were carrying cameras and picnic baskets and bottles of sun oil, others clutched crosses and candles or little badly-printed booklets about alien invasions or politico-military conspiracies. All of them looked a little wired.

Well. She'd heard the place had become something of a highlight on the tourist map, and it looked like they hadn't been joking. Welcome to Disneydale.

She noticed a little cluster of buildings off to her left, and veered over to investigate. A diner, something calling itself a Visitor Centre, and a gift shop. Which looked to be doing pretty good trade, if the number of people wearing 'I Survived Sunnydale' t-shirts was anything to go by.

Faith wandered in, pushed through the little knots of people browsing through postcards and books of aerial photographs, and picked up one of the shirts. It was made of soft, stretchy cotton in bright red, and kinda cute. She held it up against herself and turned to one of the guys standing nearby.

"What do you think?" she asked. "Is it me?"

He nodded, smiling widely, and gave her the thumbs up. "Definitely."

She smiled back, and pulled it on over the strappy top she was wearing. She took a twenty out of her jeans pocket and slapped it on the counter. "For the shirt," she said, patting her chest. "Keep the change."

She grinned to herself, resolving to wear it home even though - because? - she knew it would set Robin off on a rant about exploitation and the menace of undiscerning consumerism or something. Whatever. He might even have a point - celebrating this place _did_ seem a little on the freaky side - but she was beginning to realise that she liked it. T-shirts and postcards and bags of sugar-free Crater Rock: sure, it was crass and tacky and commercialised, but really, that was kinda the point. It was also bright and loud and so very, very, human.

Faith liked that just fine.

Outside, she bought an iced mocha and followed a sign for the Observation Platform. A reassuringly sturdy-looking metal pier, it jutted out for ten metres or so over the rim of the crater, the sides enclosed by a tall wire mesh. It was crowded, full of the whirr and click of cameras and the warning of moms to not lean so far over the rail, honey. She worked her way along the side, shading her eyes against the sun.

Staring directly out into the crater brought on a weird kind of vertigo, so she leant back on the rail and watched the people around her. The young couple next to her were staring out into the distance, their arms locked around each other. They looked faintly excited. Some people looked down into the crater with something like longing on their faces. Some looked sick and nervous. Others shook their head and wouldn't look at all.

"It's no wonder this is the most popular spot," said a voice beside her, and she turned to sees to see the guy who'd sold her the shirt earlier. "Even if you've got the psychic sensitivity of a brick, you still get a pretty damn impressive view."

She looked at him, taking in the large silver cross hanging round his neck, the Lost Boys t-shirt and the over-abundance of eyeliner, and grinned. "Can't argue with you there, bro."

He leant a hand on the wire mesh in front of them. "They didn't have this here, when they first built the platform. It was all just open-air, but they had to do something because people kept trying to jump off the edge. There's something about it, you know? The crater. Freaks some people out."

"Is that so?"

"Hell yeah. People go nuts here all the time. Just makes it more popular, though. I guess some people get a kick out of it." He looked her over. "This your first visit?"

She paused for a second, playing with the straw in her mocha. "Yeah," she finally said.

"Sunnydale virgin, huh?" He grinned. "So, what do you think?"

She finished her drink and tossed the cup into a nearby bin. "I think I have the psychic sensitivity of a brick."

He opened his mouth again, but she slapped him lightly on the back in lieu of a goodbye and walked off the platform. She strolled along the rim for a while, looking at her feet, until she heard a shout from behind her.

"Faith! Hey, Faith? Is that you?"

She swung around and saw a familiar figure running towards her.

"Hey," said Willow, smiling. "It _is_ you. So, wow. Look at you. Here. How are you? How's Robin? You keeping the, uh, vermin population in Cleveland under control?"

"Great, great, and you bet your ass we are." Faith gazed out over the crater again. Her stomach obligingly flipped. "So what brings you all the way back out here? You here to take in the view?"

Willow moved to stand next to her, and followed her gaze. She shrugged. "I don't really know what I'm here for, to be honest. I guess it was just - you know, with it being the anniversary and all - it felt like a good time to - to, uh, make sure that it - that it hadn't - "

"That it hadn't repaired itself and opened up for business again?"

Willow gave her a small smile, looking a little abashed. "Yeah. Something like that."

Faith returned the smile. "Me too."

The sun was starting to sink, and the reflecting light made the rocks look like they were almost glowing. Faith turned her back to them. "So what's the verdict?"

Willow let out a long, slow breath. "There's still - there's still _something_ here. I can feel it."

"Looks like a lot of people can - that seems to be part of the attraction. The guy in the gift shop said loads of people get freaked out, here - but it sure doesn't seem to stop them coming."

Willow nodded. "Oh, and did you hear? Apparently they had a lot of trouble with people trying to - you know - " She broke off, and mimed a dive into the crater.

"Yeah, I heard. Guess that wacky Hellmouth just doesn't know when it's beaten, huh?"

Willow looked at her with a grave expression. "You really think that's what this is? The Hellmouth?

"I don't know." Faith turned and looked out over the crater again. "Did we really close it? As in it's actually _gone,_ or did we just - you know, plug up the gap for a bit?"

"I don't really know what we did." She knelt down and rested the palms of her hands on the ground. "But there _is_ power here."

"Evil power?"

Willow sat back, rubbing the dirt from her hands. "I don't think so. Not as such. The Hellmouth had its own energy, but then there was the spell we did - the scythe, that wasn't evil. And the amulet - I don't know what that was." She got to her feet, not looking at Faith. "But really - it doesn't matter. Power is power, even if it's not evil, it can - it can be used wrong."

Faith looked at her own hands, flexing them. "Yeah. I hear ya."

They stood in silence for a moment, watching the sun sink to the horizon. "So," said Faith. "What do we do now?"

"I'm not sure there's much we can do. Some places just have - they have a charge, you know? Because of whatever happened there. It sort of lingers."

"And this is one of those places?"

"Yeah. There's been a hell of a lot of magic used here, one way and another, and especially on that last day. I think it kind of juiced the place up"

"Couldn't you do - I don't know, like a cleansing spell or something?"

Willow shook her head. "Not on this sort of scale."

"Well, we ought to at least keep an eye on what goes on. Make sure it doesn't get too Dark Side of the Force, you know?"

Willow looked at Faith. "You want to move back here?"

"Oh, man. No way. No thank you."

"No, me neither." Willow ran a hand through her hair. "But you're right, we can't just pretend this place doesn't exist any more. Someone needs to monitor it."

"Maybe we could, you know, recruit someone who's already here? That guy I mentioned, the one from the gift shop, he seemed to be pretty into the whole Twilight Zone vibe."

Willow gave her a doubtful look. "I don't know. A lot of - well, civilians, I suppose - like the idea of stuff like this, as long as it's just that. They don't tend to take too kindly to finding out that it's all real." She sighed, and looked at her watch. "It's getting late, I should probably go. Listen, there's nothing we can really do right now. I'll talk to Giles. Maybe we could station one of the new Slayers here, or - " she broke off, and grinned. "Or maybe Andrew -"

Faith laughed. "Hey, that might work. I can just see him here, leading guided tours and spreading misinformation about alien conspiracies. He'd love it."

They turned and began to walk back along the rim. Most people seemed to have left, but there were still a few standing out on the Observation Platform. " - hang around for a while," one girl was saying to her friends, "I heard that sometimes they put on a show after sunset. It's supposed to be really neat."

A couple of kids ran in front of them, almost tangling in Faith's legs. The one in front, an adorable little dark-haired thing, stopped and looked up at them. "I'm Harry Potter," he said proudly, puffing up his little chest.

Faith smiled. "That so?"

He nodded, and pointed back to the other kid, who was trying to pick up a rock almost as big as he is. "Yes. See him? That's Lord Voldemort. He's evil, and he's trying to kill me."

Faith rolled her eyes at Willow. "Nice games kids play round here."

Little Harry waved a long piece of twig in the air. "Expelliarmus!" he shouted, and the rock went flying backwards out of the other kid's hands, nearly pulling him over with it. Faith skipped sideways, only just getting out of the way in time.

She raised her eyebrows at Willow, who shook her head and held up her hands. "Hey," she said. "Nothing to do with me."

"Huh. Guess there really is some weird shit going on round here."

Willow nodded. "We _definitely_ need to be keeping an eye on this place." She crouched down beside the kid. "Where's your mommy, sweetheart?"

The boy pointed out a tall, curly-haired woman over by the platform. Willow stood, and pulled out a card from her jeans pocket. She walked over to the woman.

"Hi," she said. "You don't know me, but - well, uh - if anything really weird was to start happening, like, um, spells, uh - real ones - you, you might want to call that number. Okay? Uh - thanks. Sorry to bother you."

She walked back to Faith, quickly, while the woman stared after her and Lord Voldemort tried to pull Harry's pants down.

Faith laughed as they set off back to the parking lot. "Oh, that's just great. Maybe we should build a Hogwarts here, huh? I can just see Giles doing the whole Dumbledore thing."

"Well, if there's that much magical energy just - " Willow broke off as a group of figures stepped out from behind the darkened gift shop and stood in their path.

"Hello there ladies," said a voice, and one shape detached itself from the rest and stepped forward. "Had a nice time in Sunnydale today?"

"Yeah, it was peachy," said Faith. "And now we're just all tuckered out and ready for bed, so if you'll just get step out of our way then we'll be - " She stopped, as the guys' faces came into clearer view. Bumpy, yellow-eyed faces.

"Oh, terrific," she said. "Well, this day just wasn't going to be complete without a vamp welcoming party, was it?"

She reached into her bag for a stake, just as something whistled past her ear and buried itself in the chest of the leading vamp.

"Hi guys," said Buffy. "Am I too late to join in the fun?"

Faith grinned and tossed her another stake. "Nope. You got perfect timing, B. The Sunnydale Reunion Party is just getting started."

Buffy caught the stake and darted forward, taking on a tall, hulking vamp to Faith's left. Another grabbed Faith round the waist, and she snapped her head back to the satisfying crunch of broken bone as his nose exploded. His grip loosened immediately, and she spun round to slam the stake home.

As the dust showered down over her, a fist caught her in the side of the head, and she staggered backwards. Recovering her balance, she kicked out and knocked her attacker, a stocky female, off her feet. The vamp rolled and came up fighting, and landed a heavy blow to Faith's stomach. She doubled up, coughing, but then kicked out again, driving the vamp back to crash through the glass front of the gift shop.

She followed the vamp inside, and slammed her into a display case. Piles of books and photographs fell to the floor around them, and finally Faith managed to drive her stake into the vamp's chest.

A burst of light outside made her turn, and she saw two vamps that had been advancing on Willow suddenly burst into flame. As they exploded, another body came hurtling through what was left of the window and smashed into a rail of t-shirts. Buffy leapt through the gap after it, and soon another shower of dust filled the air.

Faith held out a hand to help pull Buffy to her feet. She grinned. "Just like old times, huh?"

Buffy gave her a rather rueful smile. "A bit too much like old times for my liking. Looks like I was right to have bad feelings about this place. I had this really weird dream the other night, and I suddenly thought maybe I ought to come and - "

"Hey, are you guys okay?" Willow poked her head through the shattered glass.

Faith nodded. "We're good. " She turned back to Buffy. "Yeah, you weren't the only one to have the bad nostalgia trip. There's a lot of it going around, seems like. I - " She stopped, at the sound of a high-pitched beeping. They all looked at one another until Willow went "Oh!" and started scrabbling in her bag.

"It's my cell," she said, pulling it out and checking the screen. "Text message. From Xander. Hey Will," she read. "Did anyone realise what day it is? Maybe someone should think about checking up on -"

Suddenly, the overhead lights in the room flicked on. "Aw, man!" said a voice. "You trashed my store!"

Faith spun round to see the guy she'd spoken to earlier, gingerly picking his way across the debris on the floor.

"Uh," she said. "Yeah. Sorry about that."

The guy surveyed the wreckage, and let out a long sigh. "That's the one thing about living in Sunnydale I never could stomach. All the damn vampires."

He looked at Faith again, and then grinned widely. "Still, I reckon it's worth it just to be able to say that line."

Faith blinked, then nodded. "Right, right. The Lost Boys, I get it. Yeah, I guess that was a pretty cool film. So you're a fan, right? You dig the whole vampire-hunting thing?

"Oh, yeah," he breathed, eyes shining.

Faith stepped over the broken glass and put an arm around his shoulders. "Well, this looks like your lucky day. I think we might just have a job for you."

 

\- End -


End file.
